


Dark Illumine

by afogocado



Category: Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Angels, Angel!Obi-Wan, Angst, F/M, Fluff, Humor, Smut, Soulmates, fem!reader - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-28
Updated: 2020-08-28
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:35:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26150494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afogocado/pseuds/afogocado
Summary: Most are familiar with angels: benevolent beings who serve the highest power in the universe. But most are unfamiliar with their roles. Most of us aren’t even aware that it is an angel assigned to the Nightmare Guard that rescues us from bad dreams of falling—catching us in our sleep, ensuring that the only discomfort we feel is a nasty, waking jolt that reminds us we are alive. We are okay. When a Nightmare Guardian has served enough humans, they move to their next Divine Trial with the ultimate goal of becoming a Guardian Angel. General Kenobi of the Night Guard has completed his 11,000th rescue and is ready for such a test: his Fall to Earth.
Relationships: Obi-Wan Kenobi/Reader, Obi-Wan Kenobi/You
Comments: 4
Kudos: 29





	Dark Illumine

**Author's Note:**

> “What in me is dark
> 
> Illumine, what is low raise and support,
> 
> That to the height of this great argument
> 
> I may assert eternal Providence,
> 
> And justify the ways of God to men.
> 
> Paradise Lost. Book i. Line 22.”

\--

1

When you were a child, there was a boy you could sometimes see in your dreams. But, we don’t remember so much from early childhood like that, let alone these sleeping fabrications. Sometimes they echo and creep into adulthood, scaring you with all the implications of time now past: a strangled adult _hold_ that locks your body to the present. Everything from before is simply amnesic at best.

And yet. Not the boy; never the boy.

But, when you were a child...

A dream about a boy you played with. A boy that you -actually-played with. Your mother tells you he was an imaginary friend: your stick-figures showed him with a halo of red and yellow crayoned hair, and a green horse with wings always beside him.

“What was his name?” You ask her now: a late lunch at this small bistro she likes so much; what you like better is that she likes it. And what you like best is that you can afford to treat her to as many cherry almond scones she wants. And you want to treat her: you know she’ll be lonely while you stay in your rented cabin until summer’s end. Just to get away from it all. Work on yourself. Maybe even work on some crafting for your ailing Etsy shop.

“Opie, like that little boy from the Andy Griffith Show.” She tells you, plucking a sliver of almond of the soft, warm breading and chewing it like a thoughtful goldfinch.

But that wasn’t right. The name.

She goes on. “He had red hair like Opie in the episodes with color; I just always assumed you had a crush on him and made him your little friend. I always thought it was so cute.”

Cute. Yes.

You smile at her like you believe her accuracy with recalling a name you can’t even remember, and that’s enough for now.

“Why do you ask?” She wants to know.

The dreams, the dreams: bad and visceral, making you feel like bat’s wings stretched too thin. And a voice: you’re okay.

“I don’t know. Just feeling nostalgic, I guess.”

Later, you think: deja vu.

2

The car ride to the cabin, and all you can think about is the boy who sometimes visited you at two in the morning once you grew into teen angst. Pimples and popularity contests; acne scars, and aches unnamable. Officious peers, and always Opie at two in the morning.

“Are you real?” You remember asking every time you saw him. This adolescent apparition; this phantom menace that set your pheromones ablaze.

But he says nothing, and you lat embarrassed tugging your low thread count sheet over your head with the hopes that if you cant see him then he cant see you and then he would go away. What would people at school think if you still had an imaginary friend? One that has grown with you? And one that makes your heart stop working just like the clock stops working when he’s near with his smooth face and sterling eyes and thick locks of red red hair?

You, then: peeking from under the covers gripping the sheets; him, pressing cool fingertips to your forehead and, “Go to sleep.” And you always would.

You, now: an adult and driving yourself, thinking of the bad fog in your head from the night before in your too-hot room. A nightmare where all of your teeth had fallen out, and a man holding all of them, a neat pebbly pyramid in his palms “i will show you fear in a handful of dust,” and then the man blowing, but instead of bones disintegrated from your skull: dust, and you wake.

And the clock stopped at two again always two always 2:22 just like that, and, “Go to sleep.” And so you did. Cooperation, you think before your thoughts slip away into some solid casing until your mind is at rest.

3

You are out hiking in the woods on a dull Sunday morning when you happen across what you believe to be an injured fellow hiker. A man, maybe with a broken arm. But you move closer, and surely those majestic shades of aquamarine and cerulean on his back are part of his gear. But they’re not—they’re his wings, and one of them is broken.

You take him back to the cabin you’re vacationing in until summer’s end. You watch him rest, and you feel like you know him. Maybe from commuting; maybe from the bookstore. Deja vu. But you know better than that, you think, as you brush the golden red swatch of hair from his forehead: you’ve seen him in your dreams.

He wakes. He tells you his name is Obi-Wan. He tells you that because you can see him, you are the human destined to help him pass his test. Help him recover from his fall. If you can mend his wing, you keep him forever—he will always protect you until it is time for you to pass on to the other side, and even then, he will be waiting for you.

You don’t believe a word he says until he tells you, “But your mother calls me Opie.”

4

He’s gone in the morning. If what he told you was true, then you both passed the test: he’s been mended because he was well enough to leave. He’s gone.

And so is your last nerve.

You pack. You leave. And you return to your apartment in the city. You tell no one; you still need this time for yourself: now more than ever. You unpack. You shower. You sit in the center of your bed and stare at the clock until it says 2:22 and say, “Obi-Wan.”

And just like that, hes pressing his fingers into your door until his shining and curious eyes appear from behind the old wood groan, and he’s entering your bedroom like he’s been in the living room the entire time. Like he returned with you from your trip.

“Yes?”

“Why does time stop when I’m with you?”

“Because I am made of its essence, and swallow its ebb and flow.” He wrinkles his nose at you like it should be common knowledge: like how the sky is up; like how gravity keeps you here, and keeps you from falling into or beyond the sky.

You dont like this answer because it scares you. So you kick yourself out of bed and motion for him to follow you into your small kitchen.

He watches you have breakfast food for a late night snack with all the fixings. He’s afraid of the sound the toaster makes and you will come to know in the future that you always know when whatever’s in there is ready—not by the popping _clack!_ , but by the way he flinches or shies away from it. When he sits at the little bistro table in the kitchen with you, he folds himself small into his stool and watches you with a shining curiosity at everything in front of you: ‘waffles’; juice; water; coffee or tea; fruit. Untilyou can’t stand it any longer that you ask him,

“Would you like an Eggo?”

“Yes, please.”

You fix him a plate and place it in front of him, and he actually leans over it, golden-red locks falling over his forehead and into his eyes. He examines it, and presses the tip of his fingers into a few square divots, then presses into it.

“This Eggo is quite soft,” he looks up at you, his eyebrow slightly raised with this observation.

“It’ll be a little crispy when you cut into it.”

“ _Cut_ into it? No, no.” Rather, he picks it up and tears it into pieces along the lines, all into small bites.

“Do you want to try it with syrup?” You ask, offering the bottle to him.

“Show me?”

So you stand near him and drizzle just a little bit to the side so he can dip his pieces in there. You show him. He follows your lead, and scrunches up his nose.

“No?” You ask, smiling at him.

He shakes his head. “It’s too sweet. It makes me feel scrunchy.”

So you plan to begin a new exploration with Obi-Wan: finding things that he will eagerly try, and tell you if he likes and doesn’t like them. 

“I have another question,” you tell him once you’ve returned to your seat and watch him tear up the rest of his Eggo into bite-sized pieces.

“Of course.”

“Are you allowed to have pets where you’re from?”

He chuckles at this like its a silly question.

“What?”

“It’s just fascinating how humans and angels alike carry such an affinity for innocent creatures. Yes, we are allowed to have pets.”

“Do you have a pet?”

“I do.”

“Is it a puppy?”

“It is a pegasus.”

A beat.

“A what?” You ask when you surface from your glass of orange juice.

“It’s like a horse with wings?” He says with Eggo still in his mouth. He squishes the other pieces in between his thumb and forefinger.

“I know what a pegasus is.”

“Well you asked me what it was.”

“What is its name?”

“ _Her_ name is Boga.”

“What does _she_ look like?”

“Well, probably not what you’d imagine. But, I can show you.”

“Show me.”

And then, his fingertips pressed into your temples on either side. And images of an animal that made your drawings from childhood make so much more sense: a green and blue and red and golden horse covered in feathers and with magnificent wings.

“She is, what I believe your kind would call: the goodest girl.”

5

You go out and buy a new Moleskin journal and on the inside, title it ‘Caring for Obi-Wan’. And in the mornings, after he’s gone, you write down everything you can remember from the night before: tracking how many treats he’s had without a tummy ache; noting how he’s still scared of the toaster; making a list of all the things he looked excited about, and especially where his plumage would fluff out; noting how many feathers he lost while molting and pressing them into a book you’d like to share with him one day. It turns into a color coded bullet journal. And you wonder if you should show him your care manual about him. About the items of snacks that he likes; about what he doesn’t like, or the things that make him feel ‘scrunchy’.

6

“Why do you like me?” You ask one day, feeding him different things one by one. His favorite are Goldfish crackers (the rainbow ones), and honey coated almonds. The latter, he refers to as treats. Sometimes, he shows up in the dead of night just for a treat and not to see you at all. You never mind.

“Because you dont like my answers about the universe.” He’s sorting through the latest exploration: a bag of trail mix. He picks everything out and groups it all together on separate napkins, keeping the nuts and dried fruit for himself, and passing you the napkin with candy coated chocolates. “Because you let me show you Boga.”

7

“Time stops when I’m with you,” and this time it is the same but different: the ‘why’ is gone—it is no longer a question like you’d initially asked him so long ago—resting in the Y of his body where you trace your nose up the inside of his thigh and he jolts like you’ve gotten too close to a body part that isn’t there: phantom arousal; ghastly twinges. And the absence of why is what hes been waiting to hear, his soft hand is heavy on the crown of your head.

“Can you show me what it feels like to die?” Your fingertips lightly smooth down some ruffled plumage at the edge of Obi-Wan’s soft teal feathers—such a stark contrast to his startling blue eyes. You can see his heaven reflected through them—a mirrored image of yourself.

He shudders against you, pressing his pelvis into yours and buries his face in your neck to hide himself. He asks against your neck, “Why would you want to feel that?”

“I want to be prepared.”

“Nothing could prepare you for that.”

“Could you let me feel it a little bit, then?”

His wings flex and spread and he sighs warm against your skin. You are hot all over: his bare chest against yours; his bare thighs pressed into you; his mound—sans male anatomy—pressed into yours, the tufts of your coarse hairs thatched together like velcro.

He move his face from his nestling, and presses his damp forehead into yours, his nose pressed into the crook of yours. “Close your eyes.” He snakes his arms around your middle, pressed between your back and your mattress and you hear the soft rustling as the ruffles in his feathers expand and then his wings canopy themselves around you, tucking all of you under all of him. And a warmness envelopes your entire body inside and out—hot like a flashlight’s glass pane that’s been left on for far too long; and a coiling in your lower belly. He presses his weight into you when you clutch at his shoulders and feels you clenching around nothing. And then, the release: burning and cool; steady waves lapping around your core with no buoy to sound against: just soft murmurs of affection, and his chest rising and falling like the light he is gifting you. And his fingers spreading out and over your cheek before curling up the line of your jaw and bringing you down with a full and lingering kiss. You cant even think about how much better he’s gotten at kissing—your mind is empty, counting the ebbing pulses until the thrumming quiets.

-End of Part I-


End file.
